


won't say that I never tried

by kiiouex



Series: Pynch Week 2017 [6]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Demonic Possession, Established Relationship, Established Relationship With The Demonic Possession, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 01:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex
Summary: Post-TRK AU where Gansey, Ronan and Adam live together in the Barns, Adam is still semi-regularly possessed by the demon, and that’s just something they all live with.





	won't say that I never tried

**Author's Note:**

> 'Pynch week', I remind myself, gently shuffling Gansey into a separate bedroom
> 
> All my love to the ineffable [telekinesiskid](http://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid) for being such a wonderful and diligent beta reader

Ronan wakes to a hand on his shoulder and the sound of his name, half-whispered and strained. It’s still dark; Gansey is standing over him, robe drawn tight, expression miserable. “Sorry to wake you,” Gansey says, keeping his voice quiet in the pre-dawn stillness. “I only just noticed.”

The bed beside Ronan is empty, and when he smooths a hand over the sheets, he finds them cold. Frustration is a sharp pinch between his eyes; anger is still the easiest emotion to face. “You don’t know when he left?”

“Maybe an hour ago,” Gansey says. His insomnia has never improved; it makes him a good night watchman. Or maybe their need for a watchman drives his sleeplessness. He rubs his eyes under his glasses, and glances past Ronan to the clock. “I’ll be downstairs.”

It’s partially an offer, for Ronan to go back to sleep and let Gansey be the one to wait for Adam’s return, but it’s not an offer Ronan can take. He dresses fast, in slippers that Gansey bought him and his father’s old robe, and tries hard not to look at Adam’s side of the room. Seeing the covers roughly thrown back on Adam’s side won’t help him; seeing the cellphone abandoned on his nightstand makes something tick in Ronan’s jaw. It’s not anger at Adam, but at every unfairness in the world.

Downstairs, Gansey is making tea, and sets out a cup for Ronan without being asked. His books and papers are sprawled out over the table, tomes of demonology with Gansey’s quick scrawl up and down every margin, ‘ _salt didn’t work’_ , ‘ _would that affect a non-Catholic demon?’,_ ‘ _beheading: not an option’_.

Ronan stares out the window, and sees only his own tense reflection. The Barns is still asleep, dream animals snoring dozily, invisible in the shadowy dips of the land. The silence feels heavy, somber, and the light from the kitchen doesn’t creep far even into the neighboring hall.

“It’s frosty out,” Gansey observes. “I hope he took a jacket.”

Ronan’s fists clench. Gansey helps him clear an edge of the table, and they sit in silence, Gansey contemplative, Ronan glaring at his tea like he’s trying to boil it. He should be used to this after a year, but it hasn’t started getting easier yet. It seems like a problem he should be able to solve, but his dreams have been too desperate, fraught, and he won’t be able to get a handle on the solution until he can imagine what it would even be.

“Some interesting ideas in here,” Gansey says, tapping one of his books. “I’ve contacted the author, with some vague details of our situation. She might have some insight.”

“Uh huh,” Ronan says. A year of dead ends has led him to believe that no one else in the world knows what they’re talking about.

“Her work has been mostly with full-time possessions – theoretical, of course, but they all are – and she’s got one of the most realistic stances I’ve seen in a while.”

“Mm,” Ronan says.

There is a pause, in which Gansey considers whether or not it’s worth making more conversation. A chill wind rattles the windows, and Ronan automatically turns to look. He knows he’s not going to see Adam coming home, not this early, but it’s impossible to resist. A minute after that and Gansey breaks the silence again. “I called Blue, last night.”

“Oh,” Ronan says, and as tempting as it is to say something barbed and terrible, gratitude to Gansey for sticking with him evens him out. “How is she?”

“Good,” Gansey says vaguely. “Her studies are going well. Her mother’s wedding is coming up – it’s going to be bohemian and aggressively non-traditional, by all accounts.” There is no disguising the longing in his voice, for Blue and her life and his absence in it. Ronan tastes guilt in the back of his throat, but swallows it down; Gansey stirs the dregs of his tea, and then skulls them. “So that’s nice.”

“You should go to the wedding,” Ronan tells him. “She wouldn’t be talking about it with you if she wouldn’t like you there. We’d be fine without you for a day. Or a week, whatever, we’d cope.”

Gansey gives him a distant, fractured smile, and says, “I’ll think about it. Seeing her again after this long might be… difficult,” and then he takes both their cups to the sink so that Ronan can’t see his face. Ronan drags his nails down a groove in the table, and hates the universe with a passion.

The thing about Blue is, she makes things louder. The thing about Adam is, if any of them ever want to see him again, they need to keep things quiet.

The harried discussions on whether or not Gansey should stay were settled months ago, and now they’re all just living with the results. “Hey,” Ronan says to Gansey, before the moment passes and regret can eat at them until the next time they’re both at the pre-dawn misery party. “It means a lot.”

Gansey shrugs with one shoulder, back turned, but by the time he’s put the kettle back on, his expression is restored to neutral, and Ronan can’t hate _him_.

Dawn breaks coldly in their kitchen, light slanting grey and yellow through the frosted windowpanes. Gansey continues squinting at his notes, as tired as he always is; Ronan glares at the light, and the windows, and then stands, stretching the cricks out of his stiff joints. “Be back soon,” he tells Gansey.

“I’ll keep the kettle warm,” Gansey replies.

Outside the house, everything is sharp-cold and dewy. The miserable pitch of the sky is enough to see by, but it sucks the beauty out of even the Barn’s picturesque landscape. Ronan treads over muddy, dull land in a muddy, dull world, pajama pants tucked into his gumboots, winter coat hanging over his tank. Belatedly, he realizes that he didn’t check to see if Adam’s boots were missing from the mudroom, and then he can’t think of anything else. It would have been a rough enough walk in the dark without having to go barefoot too.

It comes and goes in waves, but it’s been a bad season. None of them have been sleeping enough. Gansey misses Blue so much it feels like they’re living with her ghost, and Adam and Ronan were only just learning the shape of things between them when they realized they had a problem. Everything is fragile. Everything feels like one day it’s just all going to tip, and never right itself again.

Ronan has already decided that today is not going to be that day.

He heads towards the edge of the forest that the Barns brushes up against, and it isn’t Cabeswater but it is dense and dark and an easy place to get lost in. Adam had a knack for self-isolating even before he had a reason to, and Ronan knows him better than anyone now, knows where he likes to go when he needs to be away from all people, for his sake as much as theirs. This is the world’s worst game, but they’ve both gotten good at playing it.

Between the trees, the weak dawn filters through even more feebly. Everything is muted, the gnarls of tree roots traps, the rustles of night animals suspect. Ronan’s breath comes in thin mists on every exhale, and he hopes Adam did think to grab a coat. He treads the old paths, scanning the ground for crushed grass and footprints. Sometimes Adam needs to trick the demon and lose himself somewhere deep and hard to find; Ronan continues to find him. They’ve all agreed on a backup plan, which involves clearings and Gansey and helicopters, but that’s a last resort. This early, Ronan isn’t more worried than he usually is when a demon has its hooks in Adam’s throat.

They’ve tried everything they can think of, and quite a few things more. Gansey alternates writing up the rest of his Glendower research, and investigating amateur demonology; Ronan plays with toys and tinctures and cures. Adam works most days, covers a lot of their groceries, and goes through Gansey’s books in the evenings. There are days when it’s all any of them talk about, and days when none of them can quite bear to.

More than once, Ronan has found Adam ready to leave, bag half-packed, frustration and loathing and shame choking him past thinking. One of these days, Ronan is going to wake up to a note that says, ‘sorry’, and probably also ‘burden’, and no forwarding address. Today is not that day, but the possibility of it is always dangling directly overhead.

Ronan finds scratch marks on a tree trunk, a scrap of a bloody fingernail, and he can only guess that it’s fresh, he doesn’t remember every place they’ve hidden in this forest before. There’s not much of a trail, but he moves slowly and carefully, keeps his ears open and finally, finally, catches a raw and ragged inhale.

Adam Parrish is slumped at the base of a tree, head against his knees, chest shaking with tentative, uncertain breaths. He doesn’t look up at Ronan’s approach; his hands are linked over the back of his neck, nails shredded, palms bloody. One of Ronan’s jackets is slung over his shoulders, but his feet are bare and flushed with cold.

Relief staggers Ronan, about the only match for all his strangled fury. Adam is found; today is garbage, but good enough. He says, “Hey.”

It takes Adam a moment, but he answers, “Hey,” from somewhere between his knees.

Ronan sits down beside him, and his pajama pants are damp in seconds. It’s uncomfortable and unpleasant, but he’s ready to stay as long as he needs. Adam doesn’t lean in to him, probably doesn’t want to be touched, and as hard as it is, Ronan doesn’t reach across the narrow space between them. “Didn’t break your arm this time?”

Adam looks up, just enough to prop his chin on his legs. The fight has totally gone out of him; he looks at Ronan, bleak and exhausted. They stayed up too late, and then Adam got up too early, and he’ll probably spend the rest of the day sleeping while Ronan and Gansey creep around and try to pretend like this isn’t killing them. Quietly.

“I’m fine,” Adam says, scraping a palm over his tired eyes. He pulls the hand back a second later to inspect his nails, mouth twisting with unhappy surprise. Even if he’s not hurt, he’s hurting. Neither of them are dressed warmly enough to sit out for long, but Adam doesn’t look ready to move, and Ronan doesn’t want the job of making him. “Did you both just – get up and notice?”

“Gansey noticed,” Ronan replies. “Guess you left our door open or something. He woke me.”

Adam’s misery deepens. “I’d have found my own way back,” he says, and he’s too tired to try and sound like he’s anything near okay. Ronan catches himself pulling up a fistful of grass and forces his hands to relax. “There’s no point both of you waiting up for me, and coming out like this –”

“Do you think we’re going to do anything different?” Ronan interrupts.

 Adam pauses, and his silence is a concession. Slowly, he leans into Ronan’s side, and he feels awkward, brittle, cold to the touch. Ronan puts an arm over his shoulder, and wishes he knew if this kind of thing was bringing them closer or further apart. He can feel the rise and fall of Adam’s shoulders as his breaths even out, and he can see the sweat drying on Adam’s brow. He’s probably freezing, and Ronan probably needs to get them both back indoors, but he wants to go at Adam’s pace as much as he can, wants to go slow and careful and do everything he can to stop time from slipping out of his hands.

Adam sighs. Ronan presses a kiss to his temple. Adam turns his head so Ronan can kiss his jaw, his throat, his lips, saying something it is still very hard for Ronan to say with words. It is still damp and uncomfortable, and Adam’s still not entirely steady, but there is something fierce and upsetting in Ronan’s chest, and this is the only way he can think to manage it.

“Okay,” Adam says eventually. “Okay. I need to fix my hands.”

Ronan helps Adam struggle upright, since Adam’s legs are stiff with cold, and his hands are sore, and his depth perception doesn’t seem to be quite back yet. He’s offered before to be there, when Adam grapples with the demon that moves his fingers and his eyes and hates blindly outwards, but that’s the one thing that Adam truly wouldn’t be able to stand. This compromise doesn’t seem better, but it’s enough to hold them together for now.

Gansey has said to Ronan that neither of them have had a healthy example of how to love someone. Ronan has said to Gansey that they’re trying, and who is he to talk, and to fuck off with that before Adam hears and none of them speak for a week.

They walk back slowly, Adam tucked in Ronan’s side, and he is not usually so small that Ronan can wrap an arm around him and just maneuver him, but this Adam is exhausted, shoulders slanted, thoroughly defeated by the battle he’s just won. Ronan’s dubious care is allowable; Gansey’s sincere concern is as well, a recent development that they can all breathe easier for.

Out of the trees, the sunrise has not gotten anymore inspiring, but it’s easier for Adam to walk unsupported. Ronan takes one of his hands instead, brushing his thumb over the tender palm, careful not to touch the ragged nailbeds. It seems to take an age to pass the outbuildings, especially with Adam barefoot and the mud a terrible, icy terrain. “I’ll try and take shoes next time,” Adam says, so Ronan doesn’t have to, though they both know he doesn’t always have time when he has an urgent need to be _away_.

“I’ll bring them with you,” Ronan says, “Next time I come to get you,” and he doesn’t know if the _next time_ is going to rankle Adam, or if the concern might please him, or if the fatigue is just carving itself a little deeper into his core with every little adjustment they have to make to their lives. Right now, he just nods. Ronan squeezes his hand; Adam squeezes back.

Gansey will make them hot tea when they get back, or coffee, or a stiff drink for Ronan, which he thinks he could probably use. Time is relative; it’s never too early to drink if you never really sleep. Adam looks like he wants to say sorry, but won’t, which Ronan is glad for. Ronan wants to tell him he loves him, but it doesn’t feel like the right moment, and Adam already knows anyway. It makes things easier and harder; it’s a reason to go through this, over and over, pore through books and dreams and make each other miserable.

They are all three of them trapped in Henrietta, but safe enough, and nothing is okay, but they’re coping, sort of, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed writing this one a lot :^) it feels close to a lot of my original work, so I really hope you all like reading it. I'd love to hear what you thought, here or on [tumblr](http://kiiouex.tumblr.com/)


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